The Dodo Archive

Smart Pig Solves Puzzle In Under A Minute

Braininess likely isn't the first quality to jump to mind when most people think about pigs, but it probably should be. Here's one now to show you why.

When presented with a relatively complex problem-solving task - arrange wooden blocks according to their color - this pig named Moritz does so with remarkable ease. In fact, he's able to complete the exercise in under a minute - faster, perhaps, than some young humans.

While it's clear that Moritz has had a bit of training, his intellectual capacity is far from atypical for his kind. A research paper in the International Journal of Comparative Psychology found that pigs are actually on par with a number of animals people commonly credited with being brainy.

"We have shown that pigs share a number of cognitive capacities with other highly intelligent species such as dogs, chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins, and even humans," said neuroscientist Lori Marino in a press release. "There is good scientific evidence to suggest we need to rethink our overall relationship to them."